Frost
by asiago-cheese
Summary: "My point is, sometimes you face your enemy head-on, and sometimes you wait until his weakness is revealed. Patience is a warrior's greatest weapon." Trapped behind enemy lines and quickly running out of options, Jak proves once again that he is, above all else, a survivor. (Jak 3, mid-game AU)


**This is a story I started a while ago, but I took it off the site after the first chapter due to certain... circumstances beyond my control. Now that they're resolved, I began going back through my old files and rediscovered this, and decided that I wanted to recontinue it. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Frost  
Chapter 1

He woke up with the taste of blood in his mouth. As sad a fact as it was, waking up to such a thing was something he was used to. It felt like a yakkow was sitting on his chest and he'd swallowed a bucket of thumbtacks. He forced his eyes to open and saw nothing but darkness. He tried to lift his head and was only able to move it slightly, making his face scratch against something rough and uneven, but it felt like he was moving in slow motion and his brain even slower. He groaned in frustration and pain, suddenly aware of the pounding in his head. All at once, his world was thrown into light. His vision swam and his eyes watered, and he screwed them shut, groaning in pain. Something—a hand?—slapped his cheek lightly before cupping his chin and forcing it upward. He forced his eyes open, gritting his teeth against flashing lights and swimming colors, trying to make out a distant conversation.

"—sorry—didn't—"

"—idiot—concussion—"

"—Damas—kill—"

"—_up_! Kid, enough with the drama. Get your shit together so I can talk to you for a minute!"

His vision began to clear, but everything was fuzzy at best. He felt removed and dizzy, almost like he was watching someone else try to swim through a lake full of sludge.

"Shut the fuck up, Rita!" another voice barked. In a much kinder tone, the voice said, "kid, can you hear me? Think you could take a look at me?"

It took a lot more strength than it should have, but he forced his eyes to stop rolling around in his skull to look up at the person. At least, he thought it was a person: it looked like a rotating, multicolored blob to him. If it hadn't been for the voice, he would have thought the person was a tree.

Trees. He hadn't seen a tree in so long. It would be nice to see a tree again…

"Good job, kid. Now, how many fingers am I holding up?" the blob said, holding up another blob that he guessed was supposed to be a hand.

He furrowed his eyebrows and frowned, trying and utterly failing to count digits. "Six," he croaked. His frown deepened: that didn't sound quite right. How many fingers were on one hand, again?

"Fuck, how hard did you the damn kid? I said to knock him out, not give him brain damage. What's your name, kid? Then we can get you some water, yeah?"

Water sounded wonderful. Amazing, actually. But what was his name again? It suddenly slipped his mind. "…J-Jak…"

The stranger scoffed, suddenly looking less friendly and a little more vicious. "You Spargans are a piece of work, yeah? Even in your state, you can lie like the best of them. I almost believe you, except for your eyes. You have your father's eyes, you know."

Even in his muddled state, he focused in on the fact that this stranger—this random person who was making absolutely no sense to him—knew who his father was. He opened his mouth to try to respond, but all that came out was a hoarse croak.

"And that fucking seal in your pocket. I bet your daddy thought he was so fucking smart, telling everyone that he lost some toddler brat when he was really hiding you away, huh? Right, _Mar_? Seems like I need to remind him about what happens when someone tries to pull a fast one on me."

Jak felt himself jerk forward, and he found himself staring into the man's face. A single eye grinned back at him, the other covered by a black eye patch.

"So what do you say, Mar? You want to help me finally throw your old man off his high horse?"

Everything was happening too fast for his muddled mind to comprehend. "…I… I don't… I'm not…"

"Right, your concussion. Don't worry, _your_ _Highness_, we'll fix you up and ask you again when you're feeling better, alright?"

The man patted his cheek again before withdrawing his hands completely, letting Jak's head loll from side to side. He forced his neck to support his head, his mind unable to process exactly what was going on, but a bag was thrown over his head and he plunged, once again, into darkness.

* * *

"And I propose a toast," Teb said, "to another successful artifact hunt. May we live long and prosper."

Lackley gave a loud hoot at his partner's antics and took another swig of alcohol. "Don't you dare get all proper on me. You ain't even drunk yet."

He earned a toothy half-glare from Teb before taking a long drink of his own. No, they weren't supposed to be drinking, not while they were on duty and still in the Wastes, and especially since there was a storm looming menacingly over the horizon, but they were young and had the Sand Shark not ten feet away from them, not to mention that they were armed to the teeth and then some.

What was the worst that could happen?

Lackley opened his mouth to speak—about what, he wouldn't be able to later recall—when something flashed against the horizon. He stared, his lips forming a tight, neutral line against his face as he subconsciously reached for his gun. Teb followed his line of vision, tilting his head to the side in thought.

"The radar didn't pick up any artifacts over there," Teb said, and Lackley nodded in agreement. There were very few things in the desert that reflected metal like that, two of which were the crumbling bridges and the numerous desert vehicles. If there were no artifacts, then that could only mean one thing: Marauders, who were disturbingly—oddly—close to Spargus. "…Fuck. I'm gonna need something stronger than beer after this."

"Like you need anything stronger than beer," he bit, already climbing into the vehicle. "You hold your booze like a damn woman."

One cuff on the head and a few moments later, they were speeding toward the reflection in the distance. Lackley played with the trigger of the gun turrets, watching for any sign of movement along the horizon and found absolutely none.

"Somethin' don't feel right about this, Teb," he yelled over the roar of the engines and got a solemn nod of agreement. He squinted his eyes, finally catching the sun at the right angle and making the outline of the vehicle get thrown into relief, and his heart plummeted into his stomach. "Fuck, it's the Hopper!"

Teb let out a colorful string of expletives before putting the desert vehicle into full gear, making them move at a speed that would have given Kleiver a heart attack over one of his precious babies. They reached the Hopper in no time, Teb screeching to a halt barely half a moment before Lackley had jumped out of the passenger seat and was running toward the other vehicle.

The Hopper was actually in not as bad of shape as he thought it was: true, it was upside down and resting on a rock, but other than that, it looked completely intact. Still, he knew from experience that just because an accident didn't look bad didn't necessarily mean that no one was injured.

He pulled himself up and over the first sheet of rock and the Hopper's ceiling only to find himself looking at two empty seats. He swallowed thickly, his throat suddenly feeling dryer than what he was used to.

"Lackley!" Teb called up to him, just now climbing up and out of the Sand Shark. Lackley just shook his head, feeling slightly ill: they had come too late.

He sighed, staring at the interior of the Hopper and wondering who had been driving it. He picked up a pair of goggles lying on the ceiling and stared at them for a moment: they were definitely distinctive, the lens sizes and colors mismatched and irregular but only vaguely familiar.

"_Lackley_!" his friend called once more, suddenly sounding more urgent. He frowned deeper and left the Hopper, the goggles dangling from his hand by its leather strap. As he approached where his friend was kneeling on the ground, his eyebrows steadily rose until they nearly touched his hairline.

He knelt down beside Teb, staring at an orange lump of bloody fur. "That's…" He frowned once more, trying to place the memory. An artifact hunter with mismatched goggles lingering in the corner of a smoky bar by himself, cleaning his gun with an orange, furry creature perched on his shoulder…

"The Kid's pet," Teb supplied, kneeling down to where the creature lay and reaching out to check for a pulse. After a moment, he sighed, running a hand through sweaty hair. "It's alive, but barely. Probably won't make it back to Spargus."

"Goddamn it," Lackley hissed, crouching beside his partner. "It's just wrong, you know? Kid couldn't have been older than twenty. The least the fucking Marauders could do is leave the body."

Unless he was still alive when they took him, which both of them hoped wasn't true. They had both seen the bodies of people taken by Marauders, and it was never a pretty sight. Lackley realized with a start that he didn't even know the Kid's name: being the youngest contender in the arena to even attempt to get part of his citizenship, let alone succeed, had given birth to the unwanted nickname. That, and it had caught on more easily that "Animal Man" did.

Teb stood and took another swig of alcohol. "Storm's coming, Lack. We gotta keep moving if we don't wanna sleep in a cave tonight."

Lackley grimaced. The irrational part of him wanted to follow the Marauders and find the Kid, but his rational part was screaming at him to pull his head out of his butt and think for once. He had no idea where the Marauders were going, an even if he did, there was a storm coming and they would all most likely die. The Kid was as good as dead the moment the Marauders had taken him.

He glanced at the dying animal in front of him before picking it up, trying to be mindful of its injuries. Jeb groaned, giving him a scathing glare.

"Really, Lack? _Really_? What _is_ it with you and animals?"

"Shut the fuck up before I shut you up myself," he said, carrying the animal over to where the Sand Shark was. Teb rolled his eyes at his younger partner but said nothing more, enjoying their banter for the time being. After all, he had a feeling that once they got back to Spargus, there wouldn't be a lot of time for this.

* * *

The moment he regained consciousness, he knew that something wasn't quite right, something was out of place, but over the pounding in his head and the aching in his shoulder he couldn't place what that something was, exactly. He shifted and grimaced when his bones groaned with misuse, his left shoulder making a popping noise that didn't sound quite right even in his muddled mind. He reached inside of him for his light eco reserves almost subconsciously, trying to ease some of the pain in his head, only to have it slip uselessly between his metaphorical fingers.

His eyes snapped open.

His heart sank down into his stomach and sat for a moment while the world spun out of control. He reached out once again for eco—dark or light, he didn't particularly care at this point—and completely and utterly failed to get a proper grasp on it. He could feel it there, churning in his veins, but he couldn't make himself draw it out, to make any use of it. Then again, he could barely hear himself think over the pounding in his skull.

Where was Daxter? Something cold and hard grabbed his heart and _squeezed_.

"Get up," something growled above him, and hands smelling of metal and sweat pulled him onto unsteady feet.

He swung wildly and caught the person above him in what felt like their jaw, causing them to let go of him. He swayed for a moment before stumbling, the room tilting at strange angles and swimming unpleasantly and he steadied himself on a nearby wall, trying and failing to get his bearings.

"What the _fuck_ is going on?!"

Suddenly, the room went silent—he hadn't noticed until that point that there had been so much _noise_—and he forced his head up, trying to get his vision to clear long enough to make out figures and failing utterly. He suddenly sagged, energy spent, but he was caught by a pair of arms that held him up only for a moment before dumping him unceremoniously into what he assumed was a chair.

"_Hey hey hey_," the person said, snapping his fingers in front of his face. "Don't black out on me again, yeah? Grim, go get Rita and ask her why the hell she hasn't stitched him up yet! He's bleeding fucking everywhere. And the lot of you, go do your jobs and get out of here!"

He put a hand to his head in an attempt to make its pounding stop and felt something warm and wet drip between his fingers. Despite his blurry vision, the bright red on his hands was unmistakably blood.

"Drink this," he said and a warm cup was pushed into his hands. "It'll help with the migraine." Whatever was in there smelled like yakkow dung, but at that point he would have gnawed off his own right arm to make the sledgehammer banging against his skull to go away. He sipped at it, slightly surprised that it tasted almost decent and was… familiar, in a vague sort of way. Like a memory he had long since forgotten.

It wasn't long before the pain began to dull and fade and with it, his surroundings began to retake their shape and detail. He was in an office of some sort, with papers stacked neatly in a pile on a desk and a handful of mismatched chairs that littered the room. After being in the Wastelands for a few months, it was… strange to see any sort of room that didn't double as a place to store weapons. Strange, and a touch of something else that put his instincts on edge.

The man in front of him didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, however: everything about him seemed predictable. He had the typical Wastelander look about him with lean muscle plastered to bone, naturally tanned skin, and an eye patch; he was wholly and completely forgettable. But still, there was something about the way that the man was looking at him didn't quite sit right in the pit of his stomach, like he was sizing up a slab of meat on the market before naming his price.

His instincts were something he held in high regard, and they were screaming at him to get out of there _now_ because something nasty was about to go down. Subconsciously, he reached into his light eco reserves again, this time for comfort instead of to heal, only to have it slip out of his grasp once more. He could sense that it was inside him but it sat there uselessly, refusing to cooperate, and a quick check confirmed that dark eco was no better.

What had happened?

He frowned, trying to gather his memories. There had been fire, the sound of twisting metal, the taste of blood. And then, nothing. That is, except for a vague, blurred memory of a man with an eye patch telling him that he had his father's eyes.

"You said that you knew my father," he said, and the smirk all but fell off of the man's face. He scoffed and began picking at his cuticles with a pocketknife.

"A lot of people know your old man, _Mar_," he sneered. "He made a lot of enemies back in the day."

He felt his jaw clench: of course it couldn't be that simple. "I think you have me confused with someone else. My name isn't Mar. It's Jak."

The knife suddenly stopped moving, and the eye patch man's eyes narrowed, looking at Jak as if he had just noticed that he was in the room. "Are you seriously giving me this bullshit?" He opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by the knife slamming into the desk, its point buried a good inch into the wood.

"You shut up and listen real good, yeah?" he said before pulling an all too familiar pendant out of his pocket, letting the cord dangle from his fingers. "Earlier, you said that this was yours. Either it is, and we can work out some sort of deal, or it isn't and I will make you regret the day you were born. And I wouldn't suggest lying to me, 'cause if I find out you are I'll make you wish that I had just killed you where I found you."

Jak glared at him, watching the knife out of the corner of his eye. Any idiot could tell that things were about to get ugly fast, and when that happened, he wanted to be the one holding the weapon.

"So what if it is? You want to make something of it?" He squeezed the cup in his hands, trying to reign in his temper, and the plastic bent into an unnatural shape.

"Do you even know what this means?" the man asked, waving the Seal of Mar in front of his face. "Because you sure as hell aren't acting like you do—"

The door to the office opened, and when the eye patch man turned to look, Jak saw his chance and took it without hesitation. He lunged forward and yanked the knife out of the wood, and ignoring the bright spots that peppered his vision, moved in for the kill. It was only a moment later that he found himself with his face smashed against the sandy floor and the same pocketknife at his throat.

"There's only one reason you're alive right now, _brat_," the eye patch man spat, not moving from his place above him, "and it's not out of pity or mercy or any of that crap. I believe in justice—call me old school if you want—and I've waited a very, very long time to get mine. Damas is gonna find out what it's like to have a son come home in a bag, and you're going to help me whether you want to or not."

He was pulled off of the ground by the collar of his shirt and all but shoved into someone else. He glanced up at the person and found himself staring at spiked armor, some ridges being as the width of his palm. A marauder. At least now, he had a who.

"Go put him in a cell," the eye patch man commanded, looking thoroughly peeved. "And could _someone_ in this place find the doc before he drops dead? There's probably enough blood on 'im to attract a herd of rhinobears." He turned back to his desk, suddenly fascinated with the patterns in the wood. "Oh, and put some 'cuffs on him, too. He's a feisty one, right there."

The marauder gave a grunt of confirmation and all but dragged Jak out of the room. He scowled, trying to ignore the wave of dizziness that crashed into him as he wondered what was going on and just what sort of mess he had gotten himself into.


End file.
